The saying goes if you’re not the customer, you’re the product. Now, you’re both. Every big social media app is testing subscriptions. It's a business model that comes with a perverse incentive. Just like airlines, if you make life worse, more people will pay.
  • @tokyo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    11•9 months ago

    Genuine concern,

    How did people think stuff like this would be funded?

    I’m pretty anti corporation and capitalism, and pro open-source but this just sounds like regular inflammatory content.

    There seems to be a disconnect on the internet that everything should be completely free, ignoring all the costs that go into setting up websites and web applications.

    The money for it has to come from somewhere. If you want to protect your privacy (which you should) then you’d be better off paying for services like that than not. It’s been circlejerked to death but: If it’s free, you’re the product.

    Even Lemmy is not immune. Sure it’s FOSS, but it’s not free to host. Someone has to pay for servers, data, web domains and more.

    No matter what you do, if you want access to social media you’re going to have to shell out some cash, somewhere.

    Edit: I might get the eventual “oh they’re going to make you pay AND still sell your data so why should you pay?” You don’t. You put your money elsewhere if you were even considering paying. Invest in Lemmy and the Fediverse. Invest in your local server. There’s plenty more options.

    • @Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2•9 months ago

      Exactly. I’d honestly rather have paid social media than engagement algo and ad-driven social media. When your algorithms chase engagement over all else, it leads to real harms, like the youtube alt-right pipeline. Fediverse ain’t perfect, but I like that there’s no engagement-chasing algorithm, no ads, just donations.

    • deweydecibelEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      No business that has investors has any right to claim any of this is about operating expenses.

    • gian English
      1•9 months ago

      The money for it has to come from somewhere. If you want to protect your privacy (which you should) then you’d be better off paying for services like that than not. It’s been circlejerked to death but: If it’s free, you’re the product.

      It was not always like this. When this “everything is free” craze started, in some cases the idea was to offer something free to attract customer to the paid services. In other cases the idea was to show how powerfull was something (Altavista for example was a demo to show how powerfull the Alpha processors were at the time) and were seen as another way to have some visibility. Other cases were investments from entities to offer a public service or something similar.

      It is only when companies were born with only the free service to offer that what you say become true.

      Even Lemmy is not immune. Sure it’s FOSS, but it’s not free to host. Someone has to pay for servers, data, web domains and more.

      True, but the costs are way lower and are also distribuited. I can host my instance for a reasonable low price and if I want I can share the price with some friend for example.
      See Lemmy as the old BBS, of course there is a price but it is the price of a passion/interest.